One of those stupid, overused words that you'll find in any discussion of sports is "momentum". It's a nebulous, intangible concept that's cited to explain all sorts of triumphs (or disasters) without any concrete evidence of its existence, never mind its influence.
That being said, our women's national team is on a roll!
Down at the Torneio Internacional Cidade de São Paulo -- a four-team tournament also featuring the Netherlands, Mexico and host Brazil -- Canada sits in first place after two matches. On Sunday they defeated Mexico 1-0 (that scoreline is becoming a trend, apparently), after thrashing the Dutch 5-0 last Thursday.
If you're counting (and if you aren't, that's OK, 'cause I am), that's eight consecutive wins for Big Red, the last seven of which were clean sheets (the last goal conceded being Karina LeBlanc's howler against China at BMO Field in September).
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
The focus, as usual, has been on captain Christine Sinclair (three goals in the last two games, career total 111, ho hum) and stalwart Diana Matheson (who boosted her career goal-scoring total for Canada by 29% in one game, by potting a brace against Holland).
But considering the team hasn't allowed a goal in over 650 minutes of play (albeit, some of the competition was hardly intimidating), I'm beginning to understand why members of the Voyageurs are touting defenders such as Candace Chapman and Marie-Eve Nault as player of the year candidates.
(For what it's worth, my three picks -- in both the Voyageur vote and official CSA media tally -- were Sinclair, Matheson and Jonelle Filigno).
Now, lest we get too caught up in the swell of momentum, Canada still has two games against the host Brazilians -- the final round-robin game on Wednesday, followed by the tournament championship game on Sunday.
Brazil, as you may know, is kinda good at soccer. The women's squad is ranked #3 in the world, while Canada sits at 9th. The last time Canada played a team ranked in the top three globally... well, it was the last time we lost. By a score of 5-0 to Germany, a few months ago, as it were.
So the ladies have their work cut out for them. I think it's safe to say Matheson won't score two goals on Wednesday, and it also wouldn't be shocking to see the Canadians concede a goal for the first time in what seems like forever. But then, we have yet to see what sort of lineup head coach Carolina Morace will field.
She managed to cycle every single player on the roster into a game at some point during the World Cup qualifying tournament, so it also wouldn't be surprising to see some less-experience players get a run-out in the first Brazilian showdown, to see what they've got.
Strange things can happen in this sport (Mexico's defeat of the U.S. is a timely example), so there's nothing to say that Canada can't pull out a decent results against Marta and the favoured Brazilians. But, even if they don't, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
Sure, some more hardware would be nice, but the team has already picked up two trophies this year (the Gold Cup and the Cyprus Cup) so it's not as if they're in danger of exiting 2010 empty-handed.
The most significant thing at stake, you could say, is that indefinable, possibly non-existent property I described earlier... momentum.
Whether or not it has any real impact, we can't quite say. But hey, if you've got it going (and they do, at the moment), you may as well ride it for as long as you can... hopefully, all the way to next spring's World Cup in Germany.
(For info on how to watch the Canada-Brazil showdowns, click here).
Photo credit: Bruno Miani/ZDL